Entry 1:

The Social Pros podcast presented by Jay Baer offers the listener an insight into professional marketers thought processes and factors they encountered that they can attribute to their success. It provides the listener with “real people doing real work in social media” allowing for accurate information on how marketers operate which ultimately entertains through the laisse-fair interview technique and humorous interaction between Jay and his guests. 

Through these forms of interviewing and presenting a podcast, it reveals Social Pro’s wide variety of target markets that can ultimately be intrigued. Marketing students are a target market that are heavily involved in the social media age and are catered to in this podcast through an episode involving Srinivas Rao (an owner of his own podcast Unmistakable Creative). The social media boom is discussed between Srinivas and Jay in an episode that details the potential irreparable results of a social media advertising campaign. Through Srinivas Rao owning his own podcast and interviewing over 500 creative people the knowledge attained would allow for surmountable evidence in social media advertising outcomes which ultimately entice marketing students through their heavy involvement in the social media trend. 

Furthermore, another target market that can be identified is up and coming Entrepreneurs or people interested in breaking the business norm. Through an interview with Rohit Bhargava, who is the Founder of Non-Obvious Company, it details the market trends that are not highly covered and allow for a competitive advantage over competitors in like industries. Furthermore, Rohit also covers methods and strategies on how to market on a small business budget successfully which really intrigued me as an inspiring entrepreneur.

Entry 2:

While interviewers provide facts and their outtakes from their chosen topics, they never explicitly say their chosen viewpoint is correct and something to follow. These guests offer a very passive perspective on their topic and allow listeners to register information that they believe to lead to a certain outcome and direction. The while every episode is different all guests tackle issues that relate to the target audience.

An example would be the podcast with Srinivas that identifies the issue with today’s marketers and the public alike that they are too focussed on the metrics of advertising, this being the amount of likes/shares/comments that a post would attain. However, it is expanded in the podcast (as well as in his book) that it’s about the influence that it plays on each individual that has access to the given stimulus. While this can relate to a marketing campaign it can also relate to everyday people about the impact that social media can have on their lives and the potential causes of mental illness.

‘Forms of Metrics’

Entry 3:

Jay Baer is known as a very successful businessman who has worked in marketing for 25 years and has developed and assisted in creating large amounts of success in companies. His experience has allowed him to work with 35 of the FORTUNE 500 companies and give him the accolade of being a New York Times best-selling author of 6 books. Furthermore, through his success in marketing he was able to expand his career into advising high level companies and do professional talks that assisted in making him one of 187 living members in the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame.

‘Jay Baer’

Through these personal achievements it provides a strong background for substantiating his claims with guests. in the marketing world and providing conversation about hot topics in the industry. Furthermore, it allows for a lot of back and forth between guests as they both offer opinions on a similar subject matter that Jay Baer always seems to be experienced in.

Entry 4:

Jay Baer’s speaking style, while enriched with knowledge on chosen topics, takes a secondary seat to the guest as they maintain the expert in the field outlook. This allows Jay to add comments every now and again that clarifies for the viewer in more simplistic terms what is being discussed. This form of interviewing, I believe, would take form in structured and unstructured alike. It can be seen to be unstructured through the open-ended questions and ability for interpretation from the guests, however, also can be seen as structured through the chosen topic that Jay keeps referring back to and the interjection from Jay that allows them to remain on a chosen path. Furthermore, Jay asks two questions to his guests at the end of the interview that always remains the same which involves “If you could give somebody one tip to become a social pro, what would it be?” and “If you could do a video call with any living person, who would it be?” which reflects a structured end to the podcast and gains an insight into the personal preferences of the guest which makes them more relatable to the viewer.

‘Interviewing styles’

Entry 5:

Jay Baer’s podcast ‘Social Pros’ is an offshoot of Jay’s primary business the ‘Convince and Convert’ website. This website offers high level consultation and strategic maps for clients from Jay and other high-level marketing directors. It also offers full-service audits and two-day workshop intensives that aim to develop strategic plans for the audience. Through the initial website, Jay has been able to create a very credible podcast that caters to a wide selection of people that are interested in marketing and offers effective advice and direction. 

This credibility of this business advisory is reinforced by a list of clients which they are associated including some very successful business’s such as TaylorMade, Hilton and CSIRO. This ultimately creates a very effective podcast that has been developed on the back of a successful business model.

Entry 6:

While established in a previous entry that Jay’s podcast was developed from his initial exploits in the ‘Convince and Convert’ website, the funding for the podcast also comes from a source of advertising. The podcast is sponsored by ‘Salesforce’, however, Social Pros podcast is also a brand-building exercise for Jay’s primary business function of his marketing consultation. Therefore, the podcast has multiple mediums of generating income and ultimately creates traffic on Jay’s website whilst also creating sales for guests that are allowed to advertise a potential novel or website which they run. 

One of the key principles that remained unanimous throughout the podcasts was that social media can be a trap for your business if not used to its full potential for your business and successfully operated. As stated by Rohit Bhargava in his episode with Jay Baer “There’s a strategic way to use social platforms. The temptation for business owners is to do everything on every platform”. This implies that forming a small business strategy is essential on a few mediums rather than trying to create the biggest reach by implementing the tactic of using all forms of social media. This follows on to the next point of the importance of creating a strategy within a tactic which ultimately provides direction for the business. An example is the tactic to use social media but implementing a strategy on how to best utilise the form of social media. An idea would be Twitter creating discussion with the public or humour to not even directly advertise their products but gain word of mouth for the brand. Taco Bell is a company that has successfully used Twitter through humour to advertise their brand and gain a presence in the Twitter community. The importance of this is to create a loyalty base with consumers who are interested in your product/service rather than advertising to deaf ears.

This is a key issue that has been addressed in my marketing course that in conjunction to having a tactic, a strategy is necessary to address the direction of a business or idea. This was heavily reinforced by the products which had first been encountered to me through my marketing course. I struggled to pick up on how a tactic and strategy differed, but through practical examples demonstrated in the podcasts, mainly through Rohit Bhargava, I was able to identify the importance and effectiveness of a strategy and tactic working in conjunction.

Entry 7:

Through specifically listening to the podcast with Jay Acunzo (member of Unthinkable Media) I had a change of mind frame. I previously thought that there was a formula to success in social media advertising and what worked for the main companies was a generally accepted way to have a wide and meaningful reach with advertising. I was drawn to the title of “Best Social Media Practices Making You Worse” through my preconceived idea of there being a blueprint to social media advertising. However, throughout the podcast the opinion that Jay shared, which I agreed with, is that context of your business plays an equally large role in creating a strategy that highlights the strengths from inside the business. While companies in similar industries can provide a good basepoint for Social Media marketing, it requires a different input to engage and interact with the consumer base that your chosen business is trying to appeal to.

Furthermore, something that was widely discussed through the podcasts was that there is generally not success on first attempts of reaching the public through social media. Often, the success stories and companies that become ‘viral’ are quite a few attempts into reaching the community. This furthered on the point that there isn’t a blueprint of advertising and that multiple attempts and formulas need to be created to find the niche for your chosen business.

Entry 8:

The Social Pro’s podcast is very suited to delivering effective messages through the free-flowing conversation that ensues in the podcasts between two experts in their fields. However, the podcast is also directed with questions that narrow the view of the guests and create messages and opinions about the otherwise ambiguous nature of Social Media marketing.

Furthermore, the format of bringing in guests that are have had experiences through Social Media allows a rich insight into potential trial and error situations which have led to their current success and further aspirations. These people also provide visions into failures that have allowed them to grow through comprehending what the chosen consumer base would appeal to. While accepting the cliched nature of ‘failure leads to success’ their stories provide evidence that sometimes the first go is not the one that brings about success.

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